Nostalgia at the Waterpark
Chasing childhood thrills on a weekend retreat
When I was nine years old, my Girl Scout troop took a trip to Kalahari in Sandusky, Ohio. It was my first time at a waterpark that big, and it felt like heaven.
As a kid, I was a massive swimming enthusiast. We didn’t have a pool at home, but I frequented my friends’ backyard swimming holes and begged my mom to take us to the gym for family swim hours in the summer. Anytime we traveled, I was the first to ask my parents if we could visit the hotel pool — and went to bed angry if we didn’t have time to swim. (Yeah, I was a little dramatic.)
I learned to associate the smell of chlorine with excitement and good times. Even now, when I get a whiff of pool chemicals, it gives me a rush of positive feelings.
That circa-2007 Kalahari trip is burned into my brain because of how obsessed I was with swimming at the time. Of all the things I can recall from that era of life, it’s a little amusing to me that the waterpark stands out among a sea of experiences. I’m sure there were more important things happening at the time, but all I cared about was being in the pool.
I still remember the thrill of riding the waterslides that felt like roller coasters. I can still conjure up the sensation of flying in an inner tube down the “toilet bowl”, as my friends and I fondly called it — a cone-shaped slide that spins you around and around until you get “flushed” out the bottom.
And I’ll never forget the time I spent several hours (I think five or six?) in the Kalahari wave pool with my fellow Girl Scouts. The sensation of floating on the water became etched in my muscles. That night at the hotel, the mattress seemed to roll and sway beneath me as I laid in bed.
So when I had the chance to go to a waterpark this past weekend, the nostalgia of my youth bubbled up to the surface. I wanted to see if I could relive at least a fraction of the thrill I had at Kalahari as a pre-teen.
Ryan and I were at Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan, Wisconsin last weekend for a writer’s retreat. In the afternoon on Saturday, we had a few hours of downtime and decided to use the free waterpark passes that were included with our visit.
Now, the waterpark at Blue Harbor pales in comparison to Kalahari (sorry, but it’s true). There are no roller-coaster-esque rides, and sadly no wave pool. If I remember correctly, Kalahari also has some indoor-outdoor pools and a bar you can swim up to, which would have been super cool to try, since I was way too young for alcohol the last time I visited.
But I’m not complaining — the essentials were there. Blue Harbor has a lazy river, a swimming pool with basketball nets on the sidelines, and a few waterslides. So there was enough to keep us busy.
Ryan and I started with the lazy river. Back to back in a two-person inner tube, we floated slowly as kids tried to push past us. The water was warm and the air around us humid and sticky; it felt like the middle of summer.
There was a noticeable lack of adults all around us, which isn’t exactly surprising, but definitely made Ryan and I feel a tad out of place at the waterpark. We eventually slipped into single-person tubes on the lazy river to make it easier for kids to paddle by. Eventually we started to paddle a bit, too, sort of racing each other around.
At one point I looked over at Ryan beside me. A subconscious smile — one of pure delight — lit up his face. I felt like I was seeing a snapshot of him as a 10-year-old, playing in the pool without a care in the world. I figure I probably looked the same way. We tugged on each other’s inner tubes, spinning around and pushing each other with the current.
Around and around we drifted, the sound of waterpark white noise rushing in our ears. Ryan and I eventually decided to go over to the main swimming pool. We found a ball in the water and attempted several baskets in the basketball net; some made it, some didn’t.
At one point, Ryan grabbed the ball and tried to float with it. He looked like a little otter on his back with a precious pebble in his hands.
Then, I asked if he wanted to try the waterslides with me. I probably asked three times in total, but Ryan is a roller coaster hater and therefore also doesn’t like waterslides, so the answer was a consistent “no.” Oh well. I guess that meant I was going to have to try them on my own.
Honestly, it sounds dumb, but I was a little nervous to go on the waterslides alone. I hadn’t been on one since I was small, and now my body was big and unwieldy. So I figured that probably meant the ride would be uncomfortable or I’d smack one of my limbs on the hard plastic and hurt myself. Or worst case scenario — I’d go too fast and fly off the side of the slide!
Fortunately, none of my fears manifested. I did go really fast though, which was a tad scary. I also wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I couldn’t really see where I was going, especially in the tunnels. Flashes of yellow plastic sped past my eyes and I could feel water sloshing beneath me. Then, in its final act, the slide dumped me into the pool, where I felt the cushion of a wave break my fall.
I smiled excitedly at Ryan, who was a long-haired blur waiting just outside of the pool for me. “One more, then maybe we can go?” I said. We’d only been at the waterpark for an hour, but being the boring adults that we are, it was enough.
I can’t believe that, in my youth, I used to spend the entire day splashing around in a waterpark. It’s still fun, but my personal limit for stuffy, indoor swimming and being around hordes of children has clearly tanked as I’ve gotten older. A lot of that waterpark magic is gone now, but I tried to salvage what I could.
On the waterslides, I felt the closest thrill to the one I had as a kid at Kalahari. The rush of falling, cold and wet, through a tunnel all by yourself feels like a certain kind of freedom. There’s the danger of speed and a certain recklessness to your movements as you careen, nearly naked, down the path.
But at the same time, you’re completely safe. Any feelings of fear are just illusions. And at the end, there’s a sense of accomplishment. You did the scary thing, and you can do it again, and again, and again.
Need to refresh your creative routines this fall? Come to my class, Building a Sustainable Writing Practice, THIS WEEKEND and next!
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